Using Dialogue in Your Writing

One of the biggest problem areas I encounter when I’m doing peer reviews or acting as a Judge on Reedsy.com is the way writers handle dialogue. Dialogue is tricky to write – partly because the writer needs to find a voice for their character that is different from their own, AND partly because the punctuation

The Basics – How to make your writing ‘consistently interesting.’

“Mr. Martin Tanner, baritone of Dayton, Ohio, made his town hall debut last night. He came well prepared, but unfortunately, his presentation was not up to contemporary professional standards. His voice lacks the range of tonal color necessary to make it ‘consistently interesting.’ Full-time consideration of another endeavor might be in order.” Harry Chapin –

Grammar – Summary of the Parts of Speech

*image source: ted-ielts.com Over the past several weeks, I’ve discussed the Parts of Speech on my Wednesday blogs. I think that writers need to understand the functions of all of these parts. To write well enough to entertain, engage, and tantalize our readers, we need to know how to use words effectively. We talked about

The Interjection and Your Writing

According to my favorite source for Grammatical information: An interjection is a word that expresses emotion and has no grammatical relation to other words in the sentence. Therefore, this will be a very short blog. Knowing that the interjection has absolutely no connection to anything – it is merely an EXPRESSION of EMOTION, and quite

Halloween Giveaway!!

If you are looking for a great reference for Grammar – SIGN UP for this giveaway. Yes, this is a real paperback that will be sent to you in the mail. And, it’s a great book!! For those of you who are working on a NaNoWriMo project, this will be helpful when you’re ready to

Your Manuscript and the Editing Process – Part Two

Last week, I started this series on the editing process. But let’s stop for a moment and look at WHAT you will be editing. I mean, if you haven’t written anything, you aren’t ready to EDIT. You will be starting with the all-important FIRST DRAFT. The first draft of anything you write is just the

Another Part of Speech – The Preposition

At their basic level, prepositions are defined as ‘connecting words.’ They connect nouns and pronouns with other words. Taken a step further, prepositions give information about time, places, and direction. It is that last bit that makes prepositions so fascinating. On one hand, the discussion about prepositions could be very simple: It is that last

Your Manuscript and the Editing Process

For the next several weeks, I want to talk about EDITING. While it is quite common to feel that ‘your Editor’ will fix all the nits, gnats, and SPAG (spelling and grammar) unless you have UNLIMITED funds for your writing, a Professional Editor is costly. The cleaner, more concise, and well-written work you can send

The Article – and how it is a part of GRAMMAR

Though the article is NOT considered a Part of Speech, I want to take the time to look at how this important part of sentences can make or break your writing. Articles are defined as words that introduce and give information about nouns. This being said, articles are the most common words in most world

The Conjunction and Your Writing

Does anyone else remember the song for conjunctions from the Electric Company? Now that I’ve thought of it, I have it stuck in my head. But, that little song taught many of us the purpose of a conjunction. A conjunction is defined as a word that joins words or groups of words. In writing, we